Blackberry: Gallivanting towards Collective Awareness?

For the past week, I’ve been using the friggin’ device. Apparently my old cellphone couldn’t stand being submerged underwater (along with the handler as a matter of a fact) for a good 15 seconds.

Anyhoo, I wasn’t exactly ecstatic of using it. And the reason was simple. It was too much of a cost for something I wasn’t sure of needing. And of course, there’s also that thing about my obsessive-compulsive tendency which would surely give me a pain in the ass if I ever tried to build a whole new set of meticulously detailed contact list,
which
only a smart phone can give.
Hoh…

Nevertheless…
Here I am now, BBMing (if there is such a term) my fingers off. I haven’t got any problem with my contact list also (since I strategically haven’t started building it).

But, one thing still came out though (and not the bill by the way).
I had a sudden feeling that Blackberry will lead humanity…h (just like how the great General DuGalle used to enunciate) to a state of collective awareness.
Communications… communications… communications…
Everyone’s trading ideas at warp speed.
Presenting… feedback… re-presenting…
Commenting… feedback… re-commenting…
I can’t help but think how I’m entering a hive not unlike a hornet’s nest.
All that idea-ing in unison, creating a super synergy... the collective awareness.

This damn powerful tool unites minds.

It’s cool, isn’t it?
All the super-races in fiction history are built upon collective awareness. You know, the Zerg, the Borg, um… that bald race from Dark City.

However, I think it also made me miss subjectivity.
I miss reading those private journals of secluded, reserved, private, individual minds.
You know, those writings that come out like a diary, prominent in movies in which stories revolve in the 18th or 19th century where people wearing suits or dresses would ink them carefully in a leather strapped note. The common words “I feel…”, “I think…”, “it made me…”, in them always have a different weight to me than the same words in a chat, forum, or whatever article that is primarily meant for the masses. Maybe it’s because such private journals were never written for anyone else, even when they are placed in a public media. They were written for the writers themselves, instead.

So, it’s no wonder to feel all touchy reading such works.

A writing one writes to oneself…

Isn’t that the peak of individuation?
And since I find individuation and subjectivity romantic (also somewhat divine), it only adds to the appeal.

Here’s one example…

As I sit I can still feel my body shaking and my knees bleed through my jeans. Scars of how weak a human being I am. They tell me to relax. They tell me not to think. They tell me to rest. They tell me not to worry. They tell me to just let go. But what am I without my thoughts. What am I without my guilt. What am I without my fear. What am I without my rage. What am I without my doubts. What am I without my anxiety. I still hear footsteps behind my back. I know they're chasing after me.

I found it in a public place, but I guess the thing that matters is to whom the writer writes it.
It makes it certainly different than a chatter.

Anyway, this article, ironically, is not such a journal. Especially if you look upon the first paragraphs.
I guess it’s just like what they say, “When you talk about it, you’re never it,” isn't it?
The true completion of the idea behind this article does not rest here.
It rests in the secret and private places out there.

-excerpt taken from the*ordinaryother-